Trump’s State Department Is Scanning Visa Applicants’ Social Media Accounts For Anti-US Content

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the non-MAGAs-need-not-apply dept

Every little thing the current administration does furthers the ultimate goals of Trump and his enablers: homogenization of the population and elevation of Trump to the position of a demigod. While a lot of that was on display during his first term, the massive acceleration of these efforts during the first few months of Trump 2.0 has turned the first sentence of this paragraph from “hyperbolic” to “inarguable.”

While ICE busies itself expelling thousands of people from this country (whether they’re actually subject to removal or not), other federal agencies are pitching in to ensure the country remains stocked to the brim with people who apparently love America so much that they’re willing to destroy it to placate their god-king.

That includes the people running federal agencies, like Marco Rubio, who was a frequent target of Trump’s scorn prior to his appointment to the head of the State Department, and who remains a target of Trump’s vitriol even in this new position. Trump has surrounded himself with a blend of loyalists and beaten dogs (to use one of his own favorite idioms) and Rubio is one of the latter.

Rubio continues to seek praise he’ll likely never receive, leveraging his new position to turn the State Department into just another DHS subsidiary. As Edward Wong reports for the New York Times, diplomats are being turned into CBP surrogates to keep the “wrong” people from entering the US.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered diplomats overseas to scrutinize the social media content of some applicants for student and other types of visas, in an effort to bar those suspected of criticizing the United States and Israel from entering the country, U.S. officials say.

Mr. Rubio laid out the instructions in a long cable sent to diplomatic missions on March 25.

[…]

The cable also states that applicants can be denied a visa if their behavior or actions show they bear “a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles).”

This is, of course, an extension of Trump’s anti-Palestinian agitation (something he portrays as combating antisemitism, which it definitely isn’t) as well as his expansion of immigration expelling efforts to cover people who may have “hostile attitudes” towards the United States or, more importantly, the Trump administration.

While Trump continues to pretend pro-Palestinian statements are indistinguishable from antisemitism and criticism of Trump and his administration is the same thing as harboring a “hostile attitude” towards the nation itself, Rubio’s State Department directive is pretending filtering out anti-Trump or anti-Israel visa applicants is the same thing as filtering out potential criminals.

Mr. Rubio’s directive said that starting immediately, consular officers must refer certain student and exchange visitor visa applicants to the “fraud prevention unit” for a “mandatory social media check,” according to two American officials with knowledge of the cable.

Searching for specific content that isn’t related to anything remotely considered fraudulent is… you guessed it… a fraudulent use of government funds. Trump loves to claim everything is a witch hunt, but he’s pretty much the only one routinely engaging in activities that resemble his overused metaphor.

This is definitely a witch hunt, albeit one that targets anyone supportive of Palestinians. It’s explicitly spelled out in Rubio’s directive:

The cable specifies a type of applicant whose social media posts should be scrutinized: someone who is suspected of having terrorist ties or sympathies; who had a student or exchange visa between Oct. 7, 2023, and Aug. 31, 2024; or who has had a visa terminated since that October date.

And there it is: the first date is the day Israel was attacked by Hamas. The second date appears to be arbitrary: something that might make the initial date seem a little less on the nose.

That’s not all Marco Rubio’s been busy with. As Wong reports, plenty of retroactive reviews of visa holders’ social media accounts and other information are being performed. Rubio seems proud of his work, telling reporters he had been “revoking visas” on a “daily basis” since becoming Secretary of State.

Clearly none of this is being done to keep regular Americans safe from international terrorists. It’s being done to keep Trump and his acolytes safe from dissenting opinions, criticism, and public protest. And that’s all on top of Trump/ICE’s combined enthusiasm for ejecting pretty much every brown-ish person they happen to come across. It’s evil. And only the monotonous grinding of government machinery gears gives it any whiff of banality. This is open fascism that’s fooling nobody no matter how many American flags it chooses to wrap itself in.

Filed Under: censorship, donald trump, immigration, marco rubio, state department, surveillance